Transom suggestions/recommendations needed

[gw204]

Well, bad news came for me yesterday.

I took some time to get started patching up some screw holes on the inside wall of my transom. I removed some old, unused cable clamps from about 1/4" above a "shelf" in each transom corner. These shelves are constantly getting wet on top as the covers that provide access are far from waterproof. Apparently, no sealer was ever used on the screws for the clamps....

I drilled out each hole in order to make room to epoxy a dowel rod in each. On two of the four holes, the "stuff" that came out was the color of wood, but had the consistency of plain, wet sawdust. The "stuff" that come out of the other two holes was more like runny dog crap, except for the smell. This ruined my whole day. I'm currenty doing what I can to dry the holes enought to temporarily fill them so I can use the boat through this season and address the transom over the fall/winter/spring. There's no flex to the transom so that's why I'm waiting until the fall to get started. My wife will shoot me if we go all summer without being able to use the boat.

Here's where I'm looking for suggestions.

I thought I had pretty much decided to completely fill in the transom and install a bracket, but now I'm having second thoughts based on the amount of work I've seen that you guys have done. My options are the following:

1. Rebuild the transom to the stock configuration and maintain a transom mounted outboard. The boat was set up to be able to accomodate twin 20" motors and as such, has a huge engine cutout. I'm not real fond of all that open space but I could fill it with some removeable Starboard panels or something else creative that looks good as well as keep the fold down splash well (that also needs to be recored). I know this would be the easiest method.

2. Again, maintain a transom mounted outboard, but rebuilt the transom and top sides to form a very small cutout around the engine and keep the fold down splash well. More along the lines of the way the current 20' Grady transom is setup.

3. Rebuild to a full transom and mount the engine on a bracket of 24" or so. The more I think about it, this would probably be easier than option two as there wouldn't be as much fiberglassing on the top sides to form the engine cutout.

What do you all think?

I have also been kicking around the idea of removing the two small fishboxes and storage wells in the transom corners as Ringleader has done. This would require relocating my oil tank, water separator and washdown pump. However, if I do choose to do this, those would be the least of my worries.




I'm going to approach this from the inside as I will also do away with the corner shelves and so I can inspect the stringers.

OK...hit me with questions, suggestions and recommendations...

Thanks guys!